Object designators have become widespread in military operations such as ranging, marking, targeting and threat identification in recent years and generally work by emitting laser light toward an object so that a laser light is reflected from the designated object. Existing object designators are generally large and heavy and are typically mounted on a vehicle or supported by a tripod, which makes existing object designators difficult to move and carry by individual users in the field.
Further, some existing object designators use a laser wavelength in the non-visible range to avoid detection of the laser spot by enemy forces, which in turn prevents users from seeing the laser spot without a special camera. The ability to observe the laser spot on a designated object is of significant value for correctly placing the laser spot on the desired object and for confirming that the desired object is being designated. The ability of the user to view and observe the laser spot enables laser spot movement or steering to an object of interest that the user wishes to designate.
A further practical consideration for existing object designators is that bright ambient light levels (e.g., on the order of about 1 kW/m2 or between about 32000 lux and about 100000 lux) often result in bright spots or glints (e.g., where a particular pixel in the image is saturated by ambient light) in images of objects captured by existing object designators. These glints may partially or completely obscure or washout laser spots on objects, or may cause false laser spot detections on objects not currently being designated by the object designator. Varying ambient light levels in the external scene result in more powerful lasers being used in existing object designators, which further reduces the portability and increases the size, weight, and power consumption of existing object designators.